Microsoft Profits Fall Ahead Of Windows 8 Launch

Google is not the only tech company whose stocks plummeted on Thursday.

Microsoft also suffered big losses - though they did at least release their reports when they intended too.

The tech giant said profits fell 22% in the three months to September, down from $5.74bn a year earlier to $4.47bn.

Revenues fell 8% to $16bn, and PC sales crashed as they waited for newer machines or switched to tablet devices.

The earnings missed analysts expectations, and led to a 3% fall in share price in extended trading. But Microsoft said that the lower earnings were mainly due to deferred revenue of around $1.36bn, ahead of the launch of its next-generation Windows 8 operating system.

The company cannot mark the revenue of PCs already shipped with Windows 8 until they actually go on sale on 26 October.

It has already shipped PCs with $783m in Windows 8 licence fees, and also deferred $384m in income for Windows 7 PCs shipped with cheaper upgrades to the new OS.

Alongside Windows 8 Microsoft is also preparing to launch its new 'Surface' tablets, which run an ARM-based version of the OS called Windows RT.